OH, CANADA!

No problem evoking poignant imagery with sound. Viviane Audet photographed by Marjorie Guindon.

What happens in Quebec too often stays in Quebec. A case in point: Viviane Audet. Actress, singer-songwriter, musician, composer — she’d be a big fish in any-sized pond. But as Steve Martin once observed, “It’s like those French have a different word for everything.” The upshot: Her amazing projects have received decidedly limited coverage in the US.

Viviane tried building a bridge of sorts in early February when she sent a copy of her latest CD, the hauntingly lovely solo-piano Le piano et le torrent (LABE), to the United States’ best-known citizen. “Dear President Trump,” she wrote, “I have heard that you may be in need of some calm. Perhaps this will help. From your neighboring country, Canada, always ready to help when needed.”

The parcel arrived, appropriately enough, on Valentine’s Day.

“We were, of course, looking at what’s going on in the south,” she says. “And at that moment, Donald Trump signed a lot of decrees—”

Executive orders.

“Yeah. And he began to speak about the annexation of Canada. And for us it was like science fiction, you know? It sounded really science fiction!” 

If any recent musical artifact could lower the political temperature, Le piano et le torrent (“The piano and the torrent”) would be it. Its 15 selections impressionistically recount a visit to Maria, the Quebec municipality of Audet’s birth. Neo-classical by genre, there’s more of the classical than the neo about them, especially where the waltz-timed numbers “Barlicoco,” “Les galeries,” “Le Goéland,” and “Maria” are concerned. And as someone responsible for over 20 soundtracks (most of them co-composed with her actor-musician husband Robin-Joël Cool), she has no problem evoking poignant imagery with sound.

Has the White House responded? “No,” she says. “But do you know what? I forgot to write my return address. It was,” she admits, “very impulsive.”